Red Forest
by raichley
Summary: Three double-murders take place in the same location over five years, and each couple has a teenage daughter that goes missing soon after the murders. When Alana Bloom's niece is the missing girl, Will makes bringing the Red Forest Killer to justice his first priority. {Focus on Will/Alana, starts mid-season 1 and spirals away from original storyline}
1. Chapter 1

_Hi! This is my first Hannibal fanfiction, and it focuses on the relationship between Will and Alana. It may get a bit angsty, but enjoy! Please leave me a review, and I will try to take your advice into account when writing later chapters. Updates may be on Fridays. I'm a procrastinator. Sorry._

_Disclaimer: Characters are taken from NBC's Hannibal. Nothing is mine, and this is purely for entertainment purposes only._

**CHAPTER ONE**

The sunlight filtered through the trees, ribbons of light hitting the rough forest floor in random places. The wind sang as it sauntered past, rustling the leaves to create a hushed melody, and the air was crisp and cold despite the sun. It was late September, and though many of the leaves still clung to their branches, some now carpeted the ground. They crumbled underneath his feet.

"I kill the woman first," he murmured, to nobody in particular. There was nobody there, after all, to hear him. Except these two, of course, but they would soon be dead.

The woman struggled in her ropes. A blink, and he thought he saw a familiar face -

"I place the gun on her chest, just above her heart."

Her screams drowned the gunshot.

"The man is unconscious," he said, stepping over the body. "He does not need ropes. I know he will not wake up."

The gun prodded the half-dead man's cheek. The victim was at the killer's feet, but the killer was the one kneeling. He brushed the hair away from the man's closed eyes, and this time there were no screams to hide the sound of the gunshot.

Leaning further over, the killer whispered into the man's ear.

"This is my design."

He rose so he was standing upright, and simply turned and walked away from the two dead bodies -

.

- until he met his boss at the crime scene tape.

"Well?" Jack Crawford asked.

"He knew them," Will answered. "The killer. He knew his victims."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "So this was a crime of passion?"

"No." Will did not hesitate before answering, though his next words were slower. "He – he planned this. He knew what he was doing. He wasn't angry, or even emotional, really. He didn't care."

Jack sighed. Will's description of the killer sounded like a psychopath. "Male?" he questioned.

"Most likely," was Will's simple reply.

Jack looked over at the crime scene team, now at work on the scene since Will was finished with it. Beverly Katz was kneeling over the unknown woman, whilst Price and Zeller were conferring over some piece of evidence they had found a few feet away.

.

"The woman and man were found only a short distance apart," Will Graham said. "The woman died of a gunshot wound just above her heart. The male was shot with the gun to his cheek, pointed up towards his brain. They are the third couple to be shot in this location in the past five years; the other two couples both had teenage daughters, one thirteen and the other sixteen. It is likely these two were married, with one daughter and no other children."

For a second, Will glanced at the lecture room door. Alana Bloom's shocked expression greeted him, and then she was gone, around the corner and away from the lecture room.

His eyebrows furrowed, but he clicked onto the next slide. Two pictures of happy families greeted his class.

"Martin and Alice Walker, with their daughter Jamie; Sanjay and Ria Manesh, with their daughter Rajani. Both couples were shot in this exact location. There was no connection between them, and nothing to suggest that their killer knew them."

"It is unknown what happened to Jamie and Rajani. There is no evidence to prove they are dead. However, this is the most likely scenario."

He flicked the slide back to the image of the killer's most recent victim. "However, he did know his latest victims. It is unknown if they had a daughter, and whether she is still alive."

.

Beverly was waiting for Will outside the lecture room.

"I'm looking for Alana," she told him. "Jack wants her opinion on the Red Forest Killer." _Red Forest_ was Beverly's nickname for their killer, though it hadn't caught on with the others yet. It stemmed from the fact that he always killed during August, when the forests turned red as the leaves started to fall.

Will blinked. "She's here. She was watching my lecture for a bit." He paused. "She looked a bit...upset."

Beverly frowned. "Do you know what it was about?"

Will shook his head. Biting her lip, Beverly took in his concerned expression. She wasn't blind – she knew Will cared about Alana.

"I'll find her, Will," she reassured him.

"Yeah," he muttered. "I'll look for her too."

.

It wasn't long before Beverly found Alana, in the nearest ladies' restroom – a long room lined with cubicles on one side and sinks on the other. Alana was in the farthest cubicle from the door.

She was a mess.

Her body lay slumped against the pale red-painted wall, and she was shaking. Her face was half-hidden behind her hair, but it was obvious she was crying. Her left hand wall balled into a fist on her thigh, and the fingers of her right hand scraped at the floor, as if she was trying to dig the laminate flooring up. She hadn't bothered to lock the cubicle door. She hadn't managed to do that before she'd broken down completely.

"Alana?"

Beverly knelt next to the other woman, and kept her voice gentle. She placed one hand on Alana's shoulder, rubbing softly, and waited until the shaking slowed until it was almost unnoticeable. Alana peeked out from underneath her curtain of hair.

"Beverly." Her voice was rough due to the crying.

"Talk to me, Alana," Beverly murmured.

Alana closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. She did not look directly at Beverly, though. "Has Will finished his lecture yet?" she questioned.

Beverly nodded. "Yes. Do you want me to get him?"

Nodding gratefully, Alana began to wipe the tears from her eyes and pulled herself into a sitting position. Beverly pulled out her cell phone – she didn't want to leave Alana alone in this state – and dialled Will's number.

"Thanks," Alana whispered.

Will picked up straight away. "Beverly," he said. "You found her."

Quickly, Beverly told Will that Alana wanted to talk to him, and where they were. He hung up, saying that he was on his way, and Beverly was free to wrap her arms around Alana. This was how Will found them when he arrived, three minutes later.

"Alana." Then he was next to her, pulling her away from Beverly and into his own arms. "Alana. What's wrong?"

It was a long time before anyone spoke. Alana was still shaking, and Will did his best to calm her, even though he wasn't entirely sure how. Her eyes were red, evidence of her long crying spree, and she didn't seem to be entirely in control of her own body.

"I'll go tell Jack what's happened," Beverly said quietly, as if she were giving them a reason for leaving whilst still trying not to disturb them.

"Keep him away for now," Will ordered as she left the room.

Alana pulled away from him a little, so she was sitting up on her own. He let her do so, but still kept his hands on her shoulders.

"George and Laura Bloom," she told him. He sensed how she was forcing the words out, how hard it was for her not to start crying again. "The missing girl – my niece – her name is Mia Bloom."

And then he realised. She'd been watching his lecture, and she'd seen the pictures of the dead couple. It must have taken a while for it to sink in. She must have been watching in denial as he gave his lecture.

"Please," she whispered, "tell me this is some sort of...horrible...nightmare." And she was shaking hard again, soaking his shirt through with her ocean of tears.

He cried with her.

.

Jack's office was not crowded. Beverly stood against the wall, and two of the chairs were occupied by Alana and Will, and behind the desk was Jack himself. And that was it. For as large an office as Jack's, this was not much.

"Alana," Jack said, "you're sure the pictures were..."

"Yes." Her voice had gained back some of its usual strength in the past hour, but it was nowhere near its normal assertiveness.

"If I asked you to identify the bodies," he continued, "would you be okay with that?"

Will glanced over at her. On the surface, she didn't seem close to the mess she had been only an hour ago, but underneath it didn't seem so far away. Could she handle this?

"Yes," Alana repeated. A touch of determination shaped her eyebrows, and courage tinted her lips. Only her eyes betrayed her grief in that moment. "I can do this, Jack."

Jack looked down. He needed a positive identification on the bodies, yet he wanted to protect Alana. He could just go from her reaction to the pictures, he knew, but he needed to be sure.

"You're absolutely, one hundred percent sure about this, Alana?" he questioned.

She nodded, ignoring the build up of salty liquid iin the corners of her eyes. "I want to be certain," she told him quietly.

.

Will stared at the pale sheets that covered the bodies. Alana's family's bodies.

"Okay," Alana said.

Jimmy and Brian glanced at each other. "Okay," Brian said, and he reached out to pull back the sheet so the face of the female victim was uncovered.

Alana exhaled. "Laura."

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. The process had suddenly become difficult for Alana, and she found herself having to remind her body what to do. Inhale. Exhale. Relax.

Laura Bloom's face became blurry in her vision, as if the air in front of her face had transformed into a veil of slowly moving water. She could hear voices, but the words weren't there. They were just sounds, somewhere distant, somewhere very far away.

Inhale.

Exhale.

"Alana!"

Will's voice betrayed his worry. It was as if Alana had retreated into her mind, as if she was somewhere else completely now. She wasn't reacting to his voice at all, nor his hand on her shoulder. She shuddered violently a couple of times.

"Get her out of here," Beverly ordered.

Will nodded. "Alana? Alana, walk with me, Alana." He took her arm, and she must have sensed he was there this time, because she shook him off. Her breathing slowed a little.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

"Let me see George," Alana requested, her voice almost silent. Jimmy glanced at Beverly, who nodded, before bringing back the sheet on the male victim.

She kept her ground well this time, or at least, so she thought. The breathing got a little harder, and she realised her face was wet. How long she'd been crying, she did not know. But she did not sink into the depths of her mind.

Exhale.

Relax.

"It's them."

Brian nodded, and unfolded the sheets back so George and Laura's faces were covered once more. Alana turned away from them, and Beverly guided her away by the elbow with Will on the other side.

.

"We're going to find Mia," Alana said as soon as the door to the morgue closed behind her. And suddenly, her voice wasn't soft any more, the way it had been since she'd found out about the murders. She was emotional, yes, but she was not quiet. "Promise me we're going to find her!"

Beverly and Will glanced at each other, both a little relieved by Alana's return to her usual way of dealing with emotion.

"I'll find her," Will promised. "If it's the last thing I do, I'll find her."


	2. Chapter 2

_Early present! I finished the chapter, and apparently I have this thing where I like to upload as soon as I can. So here is Chapter Two! I hope you guys enjoy it as much as you seem to have enjoyed Chapter One. I tried to make it Will/Alana as much as possible, but I needed to introduce Tyler as she'll be important later on. :)_

_Thank you so much to those of you who have reviewed so far! I wasn't expecting quite that reaction, really. I don't think I really expected people to like it much... Remember to leave a review for this chapter, too, please? It does mean a lot to me, and I promise to read every review I get. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated._

_Also, I'm not sure when Alana met Will canonically, but for the purposes of this fic, I placed it around eleven years prior to Season One. Will is working in Homicide at this point, as he has not yet transferred to a teaching post._

_Disclaimer: Characters are taken from NBC's show 'Hannibal' and thus Thomas Harris' novel 'Red Dragon'. Nothing is mine, and this is purely for entertainment purposes only._

**CHAPTER TWO**

The girl was pretty – long, dark hair like Alana's, and the same face shape. She took after her father, Alana's brother, the body in the morgue.

"She's almost fifteen," Alana told him. She was sitting in the same chair she had for the past few hours, since she'd come in to work saying she was going to help find Mia whether Jack liked it or not. "Her birthday was in less than a month. George had been planning it for weeks. He wanted it to be perfect." She paused for a moment, her eyes watering but no tears escaping the tiny, salty lake trapped in her lower eyelid. "He wanted everything to be perfect for her."

Will glanced over at her, and then at Jack, who was still behind his desk. When Alana had arrived that morning, he'd tried to insist she take the day, deal with the shock of losing her brother and sister-in-law, but she'd refused to leave. Jack had made clear that he couldn't have Alana investigating anything, but he'd said she should tell them everything she knew. So, the three of them were in Jack's office, and Alana was speaking in a soft voice and trying to make it seem like she'd actually slept the night before.

"She, uh, she liked sports," Alana continued. "He wanted to take her to see a ball game. She was a big fan. Loved to play, as well."

A single droplet of water ran down her cheek, and it was followed by another, and then another. She wiped them away, determined not to let them see her breaking, but of course Will and Jack already knew, or, at least, they could imagine what this was like for her.

"Is," Alana whispered. "She _is _a big fan." More tears. "She's still out there. She is. Somewhere. Right? Will?"

Will didn't know what to say. This killer, this – monster, didn't leave much of a profile. Male, most likely, so he might keep the girls as tokens. But for years? Jamie Walker and Rajani Manesh had disappeared two years apart, and Mia another two years after Rajani. If they didn't catch him this time (_We will, of course we will_, Will told himself) then he'd put a lot of money on the next victims being found in two years' time.

Other than that, Will couldn't find a single thing. The deaths were quick – he didn't want them to feel pain? He didn't want to waste time? There was a feel of routine to the crimes; always the same location, always the same cause of death, always a couple with a teenage daughter for an only child. Someone who didn't like change? Someone who liked planning, liked routine? Someone who stuck to the same method for each murder because he feared he'd be caught if he did any one thing even slightly different?

Will sighed. He couldn't get a feel for this killer. And he didn't know what he wanted the girls for, so he didn't know whether Mia Bloom was still alive or not.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm sorry, Alana."

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say, because Alana exploded.

"Don't even consider -" she began, pushing herself up from the chair she sat on so she was directly facing Will. She started again. "Mia is still alive, Will, and you're going to _find her that way_. So don't -" She took a deep breath, but it didn't calm her down at all. "Just don't even consider...the other outcome. Because that won't happen. That can't happen. _She's still alive_."

She'd finished, but her eyes told Will there was much she hadn't said aloud. He looked away, unsure why he'd made eye contact at all, and swallowed. "I'm sorry, Alana," he repeated.

She didn't seem to hear him, much less acknowledge his words. She simply turned and walked out of Jack's office.

.

"_Auntie 'Lana! Auntie 'Lana!"_

_The voice of her three-year-old niece was the only thing that could have made Alana look up from what she was doing in that moment. Not that she was doing much; just staring at the same page of the book she had been on for the past three hours, thinking about something completely different._

"_Hey, Mia!" Alana grinned as she put the book to one side and pulled the young girl onto her knee._

"_You reading 'bout the wackies?" Mia asked. 'Wackies' was Mia's term for anyone she deemed insane, and although Alana was aware the word could be taken as insulting, she wasn't about to tell the three-year-old off for something when she probably wouldn't understand why it was wrong. She would learn as she grew._

"_Not really," Alana told her. "Just thinking about them."_

_Mia grinned. "Are you a wacky, Auntie 'Lana?"_

"_Now, Mia, that's not a nice thing to ask," Alana said, pulling Mia's dark hair back and beginning to plait it absentmindedly. Mia scowled and pulled her hair out of Alana's grasp._

"_No touch," she commanded._

_Alana couldn't help but smile at the stern, but admittedly cute, look on the toddler's face. "Alright," she agreed. "No touch."_

"_So what wackies are you thinking 'bout?" Mia questioned, that stereotypically childlike curiousity finding its way into her tone and expression._

_Alana looked down, wondering what he would think about the term 'wacky'. She didn't know him well enough yet, didn't even know his first name. "A new colleague," she told the toddler on her lap. "He started in Homicide today. Something Graham. I'm not sure Homicide is the best thing for him. His mind seems to work in...strange ways."_

"_He's a wacky?"_

_Alana sighed. "I wouldn't put it that way, Mia."_

"_He's half a wacky?"_

_A grin found its way onto Alana's face. "Maybe," she said. "I don't know. I only met him a few days ago." She looked down for a moment, resisting the urge to fiddle with her niece's long, silky brown hair. "Empathy is a strange gift, isn't it?"_

"_Emp'thy?" Mia asked. "What's 'at?"_

_._

"She'll pull through this," Jack said. It was twenty minutes since Alana had left, and Will had just returned from a fruitless effort to look for her.

Jack continued. "Alana's strong, Will. I know her. We all know her. This won't bring her down."

Will's head snapped towards his boss, though his eyes hooked onto the wall behind Jack instead of Jack himself. "There's no way you can be sure of that."

Jack stood up, keeping his fingertips touching the desk in front of him. "You know Alana as well as I do, Will. Would she let this do her too much damage?"

Will thought about that for a second, and it was a few moments before he spoke. "She'll fight it," he said. "But however this changes her, Jack, it's not her choice. Do any of us really choose who we become?"

.

"Let me in!"

The security guard shook his head, pushing the girl backwards so he had room to breathe. She brushed her wavy blonde hair away from her tearstained eyes, and began fighting her way past the guard again.

"Miss, if you continue with this behaviour, I'm going to have to force you off the premises. It would be easier for both of us if you left of your own accord." He made his voice as authorative as he could, but he knew that nothing was going to make this girl leave while she was in this emotional state.

She shook her head. "I need to get in there!" she yelled. "You don't understand!"

He tried again. "Miss, please calm yourself down. This is an FBI Academy. There's no possibility of you getting inside."

The girl wiped her sleeve against her face, and it came away wet and salty from her tears. "Then get Alana out here! I need to talk to Alana Bloom! Let me talk to her! _Please!_"

The guard took in the girl's desperate expression, and then nodded. "Okay, Miss. Give me a second."

She nodded and stepped away, watching the guard with hawklike eyes, as if to make sure he did what he'd said he would.

The guard pressed a button on his radio. "This is Security. Please could Alana Bloom come to the front office. Repeat: please could Alana Bloom come to the front office. Thank you."

He turned back to the girl. "Follow me," he instructed.

.

Alana was waiting by the time the guard had escorted the girl across the Academy grounds to the front office. She stood up as the two came inside.

"Tyler!" she exclaimed, rushing up to the girl and wrapping her arms around the sixteen-year-old.

"It's true," Tyler said, "isn't it? What Mom said?"

Alana tightened her arms around Tyler's shoulders, but she didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Tyler understood.

"She's still alive," Tyler whispered. "Alana, tell me she's still alive." And the tears fell harder down both their faces, and neither made a move to wipe them away.

Alana hesitated before answering. "Yes. Yes, she is."

"You're sure?"

"_I_ am," Alana told the girl.

This was far from convincing to Tyler, who stepped away from Alana then, though the older woman kept her hands wrapped around Tyler's wrists. "I need to know for sure," Tyler told her.

Alana looked at her feet. She could not admit – not out loud – that there was simply no way to know whether Mia was alive or not at this point. She could not even admit that to herself. Because Mia was very much alive to her.

.

"_MiMi's fifteenth has to be perfect," George Bloom announced. "Mia doesn't even know we're throwing her a party yet. I want to keep it a surprise until the last moment. Tyler thinks she can keep Mia away from the house until we're ready -"_

"_Tyler?" Alana questioned. "She's never mentioned a Tyler to me."_

"_Tyler," Laura said, "should be here any minute now."_

_Alana raised her eyebrows. It wasn't like Mia to keep secrets from her aunt, much less forget to mention somebody who seemed quite important to her. "How long has Mia known Tyler?"_

"_Well," George began, but then he stopped because the door had opened. A girl with wavy, slightly frizzy blonde hair and sea-green eyes had walked in. George looked at her for only a split second before turning back to Alana. "This is Tyler," he said. "Tyler, this is Mia's Aunt Alana."_

"_Tyler Lake," the girl said, by way of introduction, walking over to Alana and holding out her hand._

_Alana took it. "Alana Bloom. It's a pleasure to meet you."_

_Tyler smiled. "You too, Ms. Bloom." She turned to George. "Does she know anything?"_

_George shook his head._

"_Ah," Tyler said lightly. "I see. Ms. Bloom, your niece is gay, and I'm her girlfriend."_

_Alana blinked. "Um," she said, "please call me Alana."_

_._

Just as Tyler and Alana moved apart, and Alana reached up to wipe away her tears, Will arrived. He'd heard the summoning for Alana on the intercom, and he'd decided that this was his best chance at finding her. He hated to think of her the way Beverly had found her the day before, curled up and broken, alone in the farthest cubicle in the ladies' toilets.

He opened the door to the front office, and stood there. Alana was facing away from him, but he could see the other girl clearly. She looked nothing like Alana, but it was clear they knew each other. Both were crying, he assumed, about Mia, George and Laura. As he watched, Alana guided the girl to a seat, and she appeared to be speaking to the younger girl as she nodded several times – crying harder each time.

Will slipped out of the doorway, walking away down the corridor, and he walked, and walked, and thought about Alana and how she was falling apart and how people fell apart in general and how sometimes it was impossible to fix them, and how he'd never stop trying to fix Alana. And he found himself in the morgue, staring at the dead body of George Bloom.

"Will?"

He turned. It was Beverly. Her expression was hard to read, a strange mix of empathy, pity, and curiousity, and she was walking towards him.

"I saw you come down here," she told him. "I wondered if you might want to talk."

He shook his head, turning back to the pale, bloodless body in front of him. George's expression was not peaceful, as many of the dead are believed to be, but somehow restless. Will found himself promising again, mentally this time, that he would find Mia.

"You know," Beverly said from behind him, "I really think we'll find Mia alive. I mean, why only take a girl every two years? He has to be keeping them, right?"

Will frowned. If Beverly was right, then what was Mia Bloom going through right now? He could only imagine the horrors. They were not real for him, after all, only vague sketches in his mind. But, if she was still alive, he knew these horrors were far too real to her.

He felt guilty, somehow, for not wanting to think about that. For wanting to focus on finding her. It felt like he wanted to help Alana by finding Mia, far more than he wanted to help Mia by finding Mia.

"You're worried about Alana," Beverly said, ever so slightly misreading the expression on Will's face, "aren't you?"

Will breathed in deeply, and nodded. He couldn't stop worrying: worrying about Alana, worrying about how this might affect her. "I thought," he muttered, so quietly that Beverly could hardly hear him, "that I was the unstable one."


	3. Chapter 3

_Please remember to review, and thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed so far! It does mean a lot to me :) Thanks for the favourites and follows as well._

_I should probably mention that the point at which the storyline deviates from the original plotline is just after 'Fromage'. Also, Alana is tired and she isn't thinking straight, so if she acts a little strange during this chapter, that's the reason._

_The events of this chapter were some of the first ideas to come into my mind when I first started writing this fic, and they're some of the things I've been most looking forwards to writing. (Even so, I did get a bit of writer's block whilst writing this..) So, more than the others, I hope you enjoy this chapter!_

_Disclaimer: Characters are taken from NBC's show 'Hannibal' and thus Thomas Harris' novel 'Red Dragon'. Nothing is mine, and this is purely for entertainment purposes only. A couple of sentences from this chapter are taken from the Hannibal episode 'Fromage'._

**CHAPTER THREE**

Alana was alone.

It was nearly ten o'clock, and she was sitting in her living room staring blankly at the wall. Strange patterns emerged in the patterned wallpaper – the shape of a face here, a forest there, a gun over by the door...

Alana blinked, and the patterns merged. The face, unrecognisable among the roses that decorated the wallpaper, was the killer. The sound of a gunshot echoed in her ears, and although it was only the memory of the sound, it felt real to her. And the entire room formed the forest, trees formed out of blood-red roses, ghostlike, transparent bodies scattering the floor. George's. Laura's. Mia's.

Mia.

Mia wasn't dead, Alana reminded herself. They would find Mia alive. Will would find her. Will could find any killer, any kidnapper, and if they found him...they would find Mia.

Alana wished she could reassure Mia. She wanted to tell her that people were looking, that she was going to be found, that her Aunt Alana wouldn't rest until she was safe again...

Mia had to feel so alone.

Oh, damn Mia! _Alana_ was alone. Her parents had passed away many years ago, her cousins had moved to all corners of the world and had never bothered to contact her. And now George. She had no family left.

As soon as she thought that, Alana felt guilty. Mia was her family, and, to her, it felt like finding Mia should be her biggest priority. It felt like that should be the only thing she thought about until Mia was found.

Logically, she knew that she had a right to mourn George. She knew that the human heart was essentially selfish, and she was human. She had lost her brother. She had lost her sister-in-law. She had so little room in her heart for anything other than grief.

And Mia was only missing, and Alana needed space to mourn George and Laura, because they were dead, and in the mere hours since she'd stood in that doorway watching Will's lecture about this particular killer's latest victims, she felt almost as if she had forgotten George and Laura in the urgency of needing to find Mia.

Alana's head was a hurricane of thought and emotion, and the hurricane was only getting more destructive, ripping through her brain without any thought as to the damage it was causing.

She shook her head a little, as if that would help somehow, and stared at her hands. She hadn't realised how utterly alone it was possible for one person to feel.

.

"Will."

Will stared. He was in his underwear. It was only half an hour until midnight, and he had been lying in bed, trying to think, when he'd heard a knock at his door.

He'd opened the door, forgetting that he wasn't exactly wearing something decent and he had no idea who would be knocking at his door at this hour of the night, and there he had found -

"Alana," he greeted her.

There was a ring of redness around her eyes, indicating that she'd been crying, and her makeup was smudged in several places. She looked at Will, silent, not knowing how to explain precisely why she'd turned up at his house.

"Come in," Will offered, and she followed him into his house. Winston plodded over to her as they sat down on Will's couch, and Alana automatically reached out to stroke him. He pushed his head into her hand, as if asking for more.

"Sorry for waking you up," Alana apologized, gesturing towards Will's outfit.

She was about to say something else, but Will spoke before she could. "It's fine," he told her. He thought carefully about the wording of his next sentence before he said: "Alana, why are you here?"

He said it gently, so as not to make her think she was unwelcome, but she thought about her answer for so long that he began to think he might have had that effect.

"I guess," she said eventually, "I didn't want to be alone."

Will closed his eyes. He didn't want her to feel alone, either, but what was there he could do about it? He reached out to wrap an arm around her shoulders, hoping it would be enough despite the fact he knew it would be nowhere near.

He felt her head drop against his shoulder. "Will," she said, and her tone was close to the one she'd used a week before. _The way that I am in relationships...this is just a kiss...the way I am isn't compatible with the way you are.._

"This isn't anything," he promised her, but even as he said the words, he turned towards her. She was already looking at him, her head having left the pillow of his shoulder already, her eyes wet – had Will even seen them dry since he'd seen her in the ladies' toilets? He didn't think so – and the expression on her face somehow reminded him of his dogs when he left the house each morning.

Her lips were inches from his, and both their eyes were wide open, taking in the other's expression. Alana's eyes were round, desperate, searching for some kind of relief from her pain.

Will wanted it. More than anything, he wanted to lean towards her so their lips brushed together, he wanted to push his mouth against hers, feel her skin against his.

And she wanted it, too. He could see that in her eyes. She craved it like a drug, a painkiller for everything that had happened in the last few days. She craved an escape, however brief, from the fact that her brother was dead, her niece missing. She wanted relief.

He wanted to kiss her, just to kiss her. Because she was there, and she was very kissable, and maybe a little – but only a little - because he wanted to help her somehow, and he couldn't think of a way to do that except do something, _anything_, more than he was already doing.

She wanted to kiss him because she craved a way to forget, even for just a moment, everything she was going through.

And in the end, that was why he pulled away. Because they both wanted very different things.

He was sure that sanctuary wasn't the only reason she was here. He was sure that wasn't the only reason why she would have kissed him, had he let her, just a moment ago. They had kissed before, once. She had let him kiss her.

A moment later, he felt Alana's head on his shoulder again. He didn't have to wonder what the pause was for – it was disappointment, mixed in with a moment of doubt.

They stayed in that position for a while, until well after Alana's eyes had closed and she had drifted off to sleep, and Will was left to wonder what she was dreaming about. Then, as gently as he could, he slipped off the couch, settling her head on a pillow, and went back through to his bedroom.

.

"Will," Hannibal said, "it's five a.m."

"I want to be back before Alana wakes up," Will explained, though of course Hannibal had no idea what he was talking about. He pushed past the psychiatrist into the large office.

"I trust you are going to explain that statement," Hannibal pressed as he shut the door and turned to where Will was already pacing the office, an unreadable expression on his face.

He paused for a moment, and looked at Hannibal. "She came to my house last night. She said she didn't want to be alone." He resumed his pacing, restless, his feet creating a steady _thud, thud _sound across the floor. "She's sleeping on my couch."

Hannibal raised his eyebrows, thinking for a moment before he said, "Is it her you wanted to talk to me about?"

Will nodded, not bothering to speak, as he bit his lip. "I almost kissed her again." He glanced back at Hannibal. "Almost."

Hannibal calmly walked towards the seat nearest to the door. "Tell me about it."

Will came to a permanent stop and looked out of the window. "She was sitting on the couch, next to me, right after she came."

He was silent for a while, working out how to phrase the next part. Hannibal waited patiently.

"She – or I, I don't know who started it – we were about to kiss," Will continued, speaking more slowly now. "But she... She looked like she was just looking for some kind of medicine. And I wanted to kiss her, but it felt like that would be... _wrong_, I guess."

Hannibal took a moment to consider Will's words before he spoke again. "You did the right thing, Will," he said.

"I wanted to kiss her," he admitted. "I wanted to help her."

Hannibal looked directly at Will, who had started pacing again, his movements somehow desperate. "Kissing her would not have helped her."

Will was silent. The only noise in the room was the quiet _thud, thud_ of his feet against the floor. _Thud, thud. Thud, thud. Thud, thud. _Like a heartbeat.

"Alana is not in the state of mind to start a relationship right now," Hannibal said. "And, in any case, it is not your responsibility to help her."

Will ground his teeth together, almost growling at Hannibal. "I want to help her."

"You have yourself to take care of," Hannibal reminded him.

Will looked down, stopping his pacing by the chair opposite Hannibal and gripping the back of it tightly. Hannibal watched as Will's nails ripped into the fabric.

"I feel a...an _obligation_ to help Alana," Will said.

"She is not your responsibility," Hannibal countered. He waited for a second or two, but Will did not say anything else, so he continued. "Although, I did think you were trying to help by catching this killer."

Will shook his head. "We have nothing," he told Hannibal. "Absolutely nothing. There's no leads, nothing we didn't already know from the last two killings."

"Tell me what you know," Hannibal requested.

So Will did. "All the victims lived in Winchester, Virginia, and were found around seven miles east of Cumberland, also in Virginia. The first victims were the Walker family five years ago, then the Manesh family three years ago, and then the Blooms. Each family had a teenage daughter; the parents were killed and the daughter taken."

Will stopped, finally sitting down in the chair. Hannibal was still watching him carefully.

"There is nothing else?" Hannibal questioned. "What did you get from the crime scene?"

Will hesitated. "I told Jack," he began, "that the killer knew his victims."

"You told Jack," Hannibal echoed. "That implies that you don't believe that."

Will turned to stare out of the window – further away from him now that he was sitting down – and frowned. "I did when I told him," he said. "That was before I knew it was Alana's family. Now..." He paused, finding the words. "I think maybe it was just me subconsciously recognising Alana's features in George Bloom."

"That is possible," Hannibal agreed.

.

Alana woke up in an empty house.

"Will?" she called out, groggily. There was no reply.

_Probably sleeping_, she thought, pushing herself off the couch. She glanced around – the hole above Will's fireplace was still there, unfixed after the day of their first kiss.

The memory of that kiss was clear in Alana's mind, from a happier time than now, although it had only been a week or so ago. Lots could happen in a week.

Last night was not so clear. Tired and lonely, she had arrived at Will's house in the darkness. She could only vaguely remember driving – the memory darted away from her every time she tried to grab it. She remembered Will guiding her to the couch, and something in her hand...

A couple of Will's dogs were up, already waiting by their food bowls for Will to feed them. A smallish brown one barked at Alana, much more loudly than his small frame suggested he was capable of.

And she remembered Will pulling away from her, right after that almost-kiss.

"Will?" she called again, stumbling over to his bedroom door and knocking on it. It swung open under her touch, and she could see into the room.

Will's bed was empty.

"Will?" she called again. "Will!"

Alana took a deep breath, trying to force herself to accept she was alone. Will had gone. He had pulled away from that kiss last night, and now he had left her alone when he knew the only reason she had come here was so she didn't have to be alone.

"Will!"

She sank down on the couch again, feeling the cushions beneath her sweat-covered skin as she lay down.

"Will?" she muttered, almost silent now.

George and Laura were gone, dead, and she would never see them again.

Mia was gone, somewhere unknown, in danger, most likely hurt, possibly dead. No. Not dead. Mia wasn't dead.

And now Will, too, had left her.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry for the long delay in updating. I wouldn't have left it so long except I wasn't in the right frame of mind for writing. I'm still very angry about things, so if this isn't as good as the previous chapters, that's why. A few of you have been very understanding in reviews and PMs, and I thank you for that. It was very much appreciated._

_I've never written forensic stuff before, so I'm not sure if this chapter is much good really. If anything is blatantly wrong, please let me know and I'll try to fix it._

_This is also quite a short chapter, as it's been the hardest chapter to write so far, so sorry about that. I'd have made it longer if I could. Also, I don't particularly like the way I've ended this, but I couldn't think of another way._

_Disclaimer: Characters are taken from NBC's show 'Hannibal' and thus Thomas Harris' novel 'Red Dragon'. Nothing is mine, and this is purely for entertainment purposes only._

**CHAPTER FOUR**

She placed the small, metal mushroom-shaped bullet under the comparison microscope and pressed her eyes to the eyepiece. Under the other side was a bullet taken from the evidence for the Manesh case.

It was evident immediately that the striae were completely different, but Beverly did a thorough check anyway. When she was sure there was no way the bullets could have come from the same gun, she replaced the Manesh bullet with one from the Walker case. The results were exactly the same.

It wasn't a surprise. After all, the Manesh family had been murdered using a different gun to the Walkers – why not a third gun for the Blooms?

Beverly sighed and leaned against the wall. A striae match had been a useless hope, but one that she had been holding on to. Will had already reasoned the killer's use of different guns, two years ago in this same lab when she'd first realised the striations didn't match. He'd wanted an update on the case for his lecture, and Jack had sent him to see if Beverly had found anything new.

"The killer doesn't want to be caught," he'd told her. "The crime scene, the teenage daughter, all of it – that's his signature. It's something he feels like he needs to do. This gun, though -" He'd picked the bullet on the tabe up at that point, as if he were inspecting it. "If we could find a way to use this to put him at the Manesh crime scene, we could prosecute him for that. We still wouldn't have any evidence for him killing the Walkers. Any good lawyer – any halfway competent lawyer – would say he's a copycat of the original. And we wouldn't be able to disprove that."

Beverly had closed her eyes for a brief moment. "It's the same killer, though?"

"I wasn't at the scene," Will had reminded her. "I couldn't tell you."

And here she was, in the same position two years later, with yet another bullet from yet another gun.

None of the guns had been recovered from the crime scene, none of them had matched, neither the Manesh gun nor the Walker gun had matched any other recorded striae in the FBI database, and she was willing to bet this new bullet wouldn't match anything either.

Still, it was part of her job to run it through the database. So, slowly, almost unwillingly, she made her way over to the computer.

She wanted to catch the killer. She would do almost anything to bring this monster to justice. But he was too careful. There didn't seem to be any way to catch him. So what was the point in trying?

.

"You're sure you want to -"

"Yes," Alana said. She'd thought she'd made it clear; she couldn't sit at home and do nothing. Not that there was anything she could do, not without jeopardising the case.

Jack looked over at Will, who didn't say anything, and back to Alana. "I don't want you wandering off on your own. Any little thing could mean he walks free. So don't leave Will's side, and don't touch anything. Will, if she wants to go to the bathroom, you wait outside the door, and that's the only time she's out of your sight. I want to get this killer. Understand?"

Will nodded, and he and Alana left the office. As they were walking down the corridor, he noticed a few people staring, pity in their eyes. Alana shied away from their looks, like a mouse avoiding the eyes of a cat. He felt her shoulder against his side, and her fingers brushed against the back of his palm. He grabbed her hand, only realising exactly what he was doing as was doing it, but she did not pull away. Why would she? She'd let him kiss her once.

"Alana," called a man whose name Will didn't know. A tall, ginger-haired FBI agent came up to them, stopping a short distance away from Alana. His eyes, like everyone else's, were full of pity. "God, Alana, I only heard this morning. I just got back from visiting my family in New York. I'm sorry – you don't deserve to have this happen to you -"

"To _me_, Jake?" Alana questioned, her voice rising. A few people stopped to listen, and a few more walker ever more quickly away. "What about to Mia? To George, to Laura? Did they deserve to have this happen to them? Or am I the only one you think about, out of all of us? Because I'm the only one you know? They're people too. This happened to them."

"I'm sorry," Jake said again, rushing to rectify his mistake. "I – Listen, Alana, if you need anything, I'm here, okay? I'm sure everyone is right now. Just stay strong, okay, Alana."

He waited a moment before giving Alana a tiny smile, meant to reassure, and walking away. Alana's face closed up, and she dragged Will into a nearby empty room, ignoring the pitying glances she was being bombarded with. As soon as the door was shut behind them, she leant into his chest and began to cry.

For a moment, Will froze. He wasn't used to dealing with people like this. He hadn't done very well the first time he'd found himsef in this position, in that ladies' bathroom three days ago.

Her body shook against him, and her breath was ragged and uneven. He did the only thing he could think of – wrap his arms around her, hold her close to him, and wait for her to calm down. He wanted to say something, but what was there to say? _Everything's going to be okay?_ That wasn't a promise he could make.

"Sorry," Alana said eventually. "I – I'm fine." She stepped away from him, and he moved his hands so they rested on her shoulders instead of her back. Her eyes were wide and glistening with tears, and her face was closed up, like a mask. Like she was trying to deny the emotion he knew she was feeling. "I'm okay, Will."

Will nodded, trying not to look at her the same way everyone else did, with pity written all over their faces. "Come on," he said. "We should find out how the investigation is getting on."

He moved towards the door, but Alana didn't move. He had the door open before he turned to look at her. As soon as his eyes fell on her face, she moved a hand to her face to wipe away her tears and slowly walked out of the door. He followed, silent.

It didn't take them long to find Beverly, two doors down in the Ballistics lab. She was staring at the computer screen in front of her, reading something which had her entire attention. She didn't seem to notice Will and Alana's entrance.

"Beverly?" Will questioned.

"Nicholas Anders," Beverly said. "Lives in Seattle, Washington. Main suspect of a robbery-homicide eight months ago."

Will stepped towards her, making to read over her shoulder. "So hes a suspect?"

"Not exactly," Beverly disagreed. "See, the reason he wasn't convicted was the fact that the only evidence for his involvement in the robbery was his fingerprints on the gun."

"That's pretty solid evidence," Will argued.

"Except, by the time of the trial, they didn't have the gun," Beverly said. "It disappeared from the evidence warehouse right after the case was closed. Jury's verdict was 'not guilty.' So Anders walked free."

Alana walked forwards. "So whoever took the gun..."

"Could be the Red Forest Killer, yes," Beverly said.

"Or they could have just tossed it where the killer could find it," Will reasoned.

"Why steal a gun if you're just going to toss it?" Beverly questioned. "No, whoever stole that gun wanted it for something."

"Could have been a friend of Nicholas Anders," Will suggested. "Steal the gun to get Anders out of trouble, then toss it. Our killer finds it."

"Whatever happened," Alana interrupted, "it means that the killer was in Seattle?" Her expression had a hint of desperate determination that scared Will a little, but other than that she betrayed no emotion.

Will and Beverly glanced at each other. "Most likely," Beverly said. "I can't imagine somebody coming across the country just to toss a gun."

"So the Red Forest Killer has a connection to Seattle," Will mused. "Or, he wants us to think that to throw us off his trail."

"Jack's going to want to know about this," Beverly said, clicking the computer's mouse a few times. The printer whirred as two pieces of paper came out, which Beverly grabbed.

She turned back to where Will and Alana were standing. "You staying here?" she asked.

Will nodded, and Beverly disappeared down the corridor towards Jack's office.

Alana turned away from Will, staring out of the window at the pale, cloudless sky. "What if this isn't a lead?" she muttered, almost so inaudibly that Will didn't hear what she said.

But what if it wasn't? What if this Nicholas Anders was a dead end – if the gun had just been tossed, and somehow been handed from person to person until it ended up in Virginia? What if the gun told them nothing, absolutely nothing, and they were wasting their time chasing up a lead that would end with another cold case and two more dead bodies in the forest in two years' time because they didn't manage to catch the killer?

.

"We're going to Seattle," Jack announced. It was an hour since Beverly had revealed the ballistics results to Will and Alana, and Jack had decided to call a meeting. "We need to talk to this Anders guy, on the offchance that he knows something about this killer."

_Offchance_. The word rattled around in Alana's mind. It was the first fear that had come to her head when she'd heard the news, and it just wouldn't go away. What if Anders didn't know a thing? What if he wasn't connected at all to whoever stole the gun? What if the gun had somehow made it's own way across the country, passed from person to person, until it found itself in Virginia? There were so many questions, so many things they didn't know, that Alana was almost certain that her brother's killer would never be brought to justice.

"Price, Zeller, Graham," Jack said. "You will accompany me to Seattle. We're only planning to be there for a couple of days, but you should plan for everything and anything. We'll be leaving in three days' time."

"But -" Jimmy began.

"Do you want to catch this killer or not!" Jack yelled suddenly, turning to the man, who shied away slightly. "Good." His voice was slightly more calm now, and Jimmy relaxed slightly.

"Go and make whatever preparations you need," Jack ordered. "I'm booking plane tickets. Katz, can you call Seattle PD and let them know we're coming?"

Beverly nodded and left the office. Jimmy and Brian looked at each other, hesitantly, before following behind her. Jack opened his laptop.

"I'm not going," Alana stated quietly.

"No," Will said. "You should stay here."

"Why?" Alana didn't pause before questioning the decision. Will didn't reply, he just looked at her; Alana got the impression that he was searching for a reply, that he didn't have one ready. He didn't know.

Jack looked up. "Alana, the last place you want to be right now is in a place you don't know. You need somewhere safe while you deal with what's happening."

Alana shook her head, staring at Jack with a slightly wild expression on her face. "I'm not a child, Jack!" she pointed out. "I can look after myself! I don't need you two following me around and making sure I'm okay! I know you're concerned, I would be too! But you don't have to treat me like I can't take care of myself!"

Her eyes flickered frantically between Will and Jack for a moment, waiting for them to say something, but neither of them did. After a moment, she left the office and walked briskly down the corridor.

This left Will and Jack alone in Jack's office. It was silent for a moment before Jack said, "You should go after her."

Will shook his head. "I don't think that would be helpful, Jack."

A moment passed before Jack turned back to his laptop, and Will was left standing alone in the office with no idea what he should be doing, but with an overwhelming urge to do _something._


	5. Chapter 5

_I have no excuse for this. I haven't updated in two months, and I'm sorry. This was just sitting on my computer as well... I wrote it while I was in France. It's kinda short, and a bit of a filler, but oh well._

_This is the only chapter I have ready at the moment, and it may be a while before the next one comes out. Again, I'm sorry about that. It will be as soon as possible._

_Anyway, like I said, I wrote this about a month ago. So I have absolutely no excuse for why I haven't updated. I hope you enjoy anyway..._

**CHAPTER FIVE**

The plane to Seattle was due to leave at eight o'clock the following morning, so at around nine p.m., Will stopped by at Alana's to make sure she was alright.

He knocked on the door and waited. In the distance, he heard some kind of bird – maybe an eagle? - squawking. Then silence.

Alana's door didn't open. He knocked again, and then – only a few seconds later – cursed and pulled out his cell phone and dialled Alana's number. She didn't pick up.

He looked around. The lights in Alana's house were all turned off, so it was a perfectly reasonable explanation that she had gone to bed early. But he still felt uneasy.

He'd already reached into his pocket when he realised Alana hadn't ever given him a spare key to her home. He knocked again, considered breaking the door down, and then left.

He was at the airport at seven the next morning, having not slept at all during the night. He half expected Alana to show up, to say goodbye, but she didn't.

Jack showed up a mere five minutes after Will.

"I went to Alana's house last night," Will said. He wasn't sure why, or what reaction he was expecting.

"How is she doing?" Jack asked. He didn't look at Will.

The younger man turned – to look at what, he didn't know – and said, "She didn't answer the door."

Jack shrugged. "Maybe she wanted some alone time, Will. You know how hard this has to be for her."

Will nodded. "She didn't answer her phone, either. And – I don't know. I don't think she was home."

Jack looked directly at Will now. "She was probably just asleep," he reasoned.

Will shook his head frantically. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought of that," he said, the words rushing out of his mouth like it was some sort of race. "It's just – this doesn't feel right, Jack. Something's wrong."

Jack exhaled. "Will," he said, but just then Brian and Jimmy showed up. They had fifty minutes until their plane was due to leave, so they went through security and sat in a little cafe thing.

That was when Beverly called.

"Will," she said. She sounded breathless. "Listen. I agreed with Alana we'd come to the airport, to see you off, this morning. I just got to her house. She's not here."

Will's eyes closed. "She wasn't there last night," he told her. "I thought maybe she was just asleep, but..."

"She's not here," Beverly said. "She's nowhere, her bed's empty..."

"You went inside?" Will questioned.

"Yeah, she gave me her spare key a while ago."

"Oh," Will said, and then looked up at Jack, who nodded. "I'll be right there. Wait for me."

And, with that, Will left the airport, just as a the first announcement for the passengers for the flight to Seattle came over the intercomm.

Beverly was waiting for Will on the lawn in front of Alana's house when he arrived. She'd already locked the door. "Hey," she said, by way of a greeting. "I looked everywhere in her house. There's no clue as to where she's gone."

"The killer?" Will asked.

Beverly shook her head. "Doesn't fit his MO," she told him. "You know that."

Will shook his head. "Alana can't fit his MO," he reminded her. "She's unmarried, no kids. Maybe she knew something."

"And she didn't tell us?"

Will shrugged. "Maybe we're closer than we know."

Her eyebrows raised, Beverly said, "You think this thing in Seattle is gonna take us somewhere?"

Will looked around, his eyes darting from place to place. "He could be watching us," he muttered. "Maybe he got scared. Took Alana to stop us going off to Seattle."

"Well, if that's what it was, it didn't work," Beverly said, glancing at her watch. "The plane left half an hour ago."

She started pacing, towards Alana's tree, and back to Will again.

"We should look at the crime scene," Will suggested. "He normally..." He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't.

Beverly nodded in agreement.

Five hours later, Will was getting desperate.

The crime scene had given them nothing. Beverly'd gone back to Alana's house, in case she came back, and now he was driving around Winchester with no idea what he was looking for.

The Blooms' house – number 841, two streets over. He was there within two minutes.

The place was shut up, having not been declared a crime scene. He kicked the door down and went in.

Nothing.

"Maybe it's not him," Beverly said, through the phone Will had put on speaker and thrown on the seat next to him. So far, the phone call had lasted nearly half an hour, but neither of them was even thinking about hanging up. "Maybe she just...wandered off. She could just want some alone time."

Will shook his head, and then realised Beverly couldn't see him. "No. No, I don't think so."

He stopped by a gas station, which he needed, but which took five minutes of the time he could be using to find Alana._ He_ could kill her in less than that time.

"Where would he take her, though?" he growled in the general direction of the phone.

It was a second before Beverly answered. "Wherever he took Jamie, Rajani and Mia."

"We don't know where that is," Will muttered angrily. He almost crashed into a dark blue Toyota, which honked at him. "Why don't we know where that is!"

"Will! Calm down!" Beverly ordered. "Listen, if he's not got her – there's no sign of a struggle at the house, so it's not that hard to imagine she just walked out – we need to work out where she might have gone."

"What if he _has_ got her?" Will said, yanking the steering wheel and turning onto the next street along.

"We don't know that," Beverly reminded him. "Look, she could be in Baltimore, so I'll drive up there, have a look around. I've left a note on her door to call us if she goes home. You should check out anything connected to George and Laura in Winchester. I'm gonna hang up so Alana can get through if she calls."

And then Beverly was gone.

Three hours later, Will had checked Mia's school, the houses of any and every friend of George and Laura Bloom, and the park two blocks from the Bloom house.

He was sitting outside a church. According to a diary he'd found underneath Laura Bloom's side of the bed, this was where the couple had married, almost twenty years ago now. They still came here every Sunday, sometimes with Mia, but she'd become disillusioned with religion in the past few years. She preferred the theory of evolution to believing in a creator.

Will slammed the car door as he got out. He still thought the killer had taken Alana, for whatever reason, and he was on a wild goose chase. There was nothing to find here. Alana wouldn't be here.

He realised he was wrong as soon as he walked through the huge church door.

Alana was sitting on the very front pew, facing forwards, but he knew it was her from where he stood. Her head was down – was she praying? - and he wondered how long she'd been here. Since last night? Or had she gone somewhere else first – maybe George's house, or to a friend's?

It seemed to take him an eternity to walk down the aisle. When he reached the front, he sat down next to Alana.

She looked up at him. Her face was closed up, emotionless. "How did you find me?" she asked.

"I spent a long time looking," Will told her. "We were really worried, Alana. We thought..._he'_d gotten to you."

She looked down again. "Sorry."

He looked at her for a while. Her dark hair was a mess, tumbling over her shoulders, unbrushed. He couldn't see her face now.

The minutes passed in silence.

Eventually, Will spoke. "Why did you come here?"

Alana looked up again. "I needed to be alone," she muttered. So Beverly had been right. "There was so much going on, and it's so peaceful here. Nobody else came in the whole night."

So she'd been here the whole time. He studied her face; she'd tried to make herself as emotionless as possible, but her eyes looked tired, and her sadness shone through them like the dying light of the setting sun.

"Are you ready to leave?" Will asked.

Alana thought for a moment, and then stood up. Will got to his feet next to her.

"I'm sorry for making everyone worry," she apologised.

"It's fine," Will reassured her. "We understand."

She nodded, and turned away.

Just then, it hit Will. She was safe. She'd been safe the whole time. He'd never had her, never been near her. He heaved a sigh of relief, and she looked back at him.

She was alive. She was okay. There was nothing to worry about.

He felt her hand in his, and his expression must have given off some kind of warning to her, because she asked, "Will? What are you thinking, Will?"

"You're safe," he replied, echoing the words in his head.

And, in that short moment, it seemed like everything was okay. And the moment seemed infinite and never-ending. And she was here with him, and they were alone, and the moment seemed perfect, so he moved his hand up til it rested on the backside of her neck, and he pressed his lips to hers.

She was, as always, extremely kissable.

But, as he pulled away – a moment too soon, but still far too late – that eternal moment came to an abrupt end.

Her eyes were open, watching him. He didn't have time to wonder what she saw in his eyes – did she see his desperation to help her? Did she see his pain for what she was going through? - before her face closed up and she broke eye contact.

"You don't have to do this, Will," she said, her voice betraying only the slightest bit of emotion.

He stared at her in surprise. It took him a few moments to work out what she meant; she thought he felt an obligation to make things right for her. She thought he felt it was his duty to help her.

It wasn't something Will could deny.

She searched his face for a second before looking down again. "I don't want your pity," she muttered.

"I don't -" Will began, but she was already walking away from him. He watched as she strode down the aisle, leaving him alone at the altar. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, ink black in the dim church light, and she disappeared out of the door. A moment later, he heard the faint sound of her foot connecting with his car tyre.


End file.
